Iran’s Leaders Gloat Over GOP Losses, Warn ‘Our NO Comes With a Nightmare’
Iran’s top leaders celebrated Republicans’ midterm defeat Wednesday, casting the results as an American rejection of the war and warning Washington not to ignore the message.
“The process of the US’s collapse has accelerated,” an official English-language X account for Supreme Leader Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei posted, CNBC reported.
Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, Tehran’s chief negotiator with Washington, went further. “Conscience or the cost of living, Americans said NO TO WAR, and we endorse this message,” he wrote on X.
He paired it with a threat. “If the US govt betrays their public will to serve international paymasters and blackmailers, it will learn our NO comes with a Nightmare,” Ghalibaf wrote, according to Fox News.
Khamenei signaled Tehran would not bend. “The Great Satan wants the surrender of the Iranian nation,” he wrote, warning that any submission “would embolden the enemy to launch more wars.”
In a separate statement marking the day, Khamenei claimed the standoff in the Persian Gulf, “especially the Strait of Hormuz, has invalidated the myth of American invincibility.” He has not appeared publicly since becoming supreme leader in March.
Iran’s judiciary chief, Gholam-Hossein Mohseni-Ejei, claimed “Trump was defeated in both war and politics,” Al Jazeera reported.
Embassy Anniversary Rallies
The gloating came on the anniversary of the 1979 seizure of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, which the regime marked with state-organized rallies in the capital and other cities.
In Tehran’s Enghelab Square, a billboard unveiled Tuesday showed Trump behind bars with the message “We will kill Trump,” Al Jazeera reported.
Analysts told the outlet Iran’s leaders may now harden their demands. Hamidreza Azizi of the International Crisis Group said the chance of nuclear concessions “could also become even lower than before.”
Others warned Trump could still strike before Democrats take over. “Trump still retains enormous powers as commander-in-chief, especially before the new Congress is seated,” said Barbara Slavin of the Stimson Center.
Sanam Vakil of Chatham House said the results raise pressure on the president. “He needs a diplomatic victory or at worst an off-ramp, yet in the face of defeat he may be reluctant to appear weak,” she said.
Trump has acknowledged the war cost his party. “Iran was a piece of it,” he told The Wall Street Journal, while insisting, “I did the right thing. I would have done it again.”
Vice President JD Vance was blunter, writing on X that “the reason we lost is the war,” CBS News reported.
CNBC noted reports from The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times that the U.S. is preparing for possible renewed military action after the election. Washington has not said it plans to resume attacks.
The incoming Democratic majorities may also try to pass a binding War Powers Resolution directing Trump to end the conflict unless Congress authorizes it, CNBC reported.
The war began Feb. 28 with joint U.S.-Israeli strikes. Iran’s squeeze on the Strait of Hormuz sent energy prices sharply higher, Fox News reported, feeding the gas-price anger that dogged Republican candidates.
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